Mind Warp

70

The Liquinator


Water, water, everywhere. He'd come to the right place.

Starling knocked on the apartment door.

"Bud Flood?" He looked through the mail slip, "The name's Negaduck. I'm here about what happened with Doctor Bellum."


With a quick opening and shutting of the door, Starling was swept halfway across the room and into a bath tub.

"Yes, and what might I ask is your role in all of this? Hmm?" The living statue of water towered over him, deformed, reformed again.
"I followed her in there this afternoon; she'd snagged herself the vampire she'd been trying to nab."
"Oh, yes." Bud replied, "He certainly screamed, perhaps as much as the rest of us did shortly thereafter."
"Uh, you heard that, huh?" Starling tried to sit up but Bud moved closer.
"I also 'hear'..." Bud flowed menacingly closer to him, "the metric quantity of blood your heart is pumping through your body."

Starling tried again. "We should team up to find the vampire that did this to you. The other victim's doctors said if we could catch him, we could get information out of him that could help you. It'll be tough though, I mean, look at what he's done to you and that's just without him even trying."


"How about we do a little experiment?" The bath filled with water.
"Ex-exp-." Starling felt his heart clench.
"...And breathe. Nice calm breathes are important for smooth operations of the system. The heart is a miraculous piece of hydraulic engineering. But I never knew I would ever get the chance to see and feel from inside of it..."

"Do you... mind? That's private property!" Starling pushed his leg through the water and struggled up out if the bath. "I am t-ry-ing to help you."
"Help me?" Bud replied. "What help do you think I need?"

"Remember the vampire who infected you? Don't you want to ask 'him' a few choice questions, do some experiments on 'him'?"
"That sounds delightful." Bud answered, "Consult an expert. An age old remedy to ignorance: memes."
"Exactly... I think." Starling straightened, sopping wet. "And what about team based education? Sound like fun too, yeah?"

"What a splendid idea! Why lie in wait in a puddle for room service when you can experience the thrill of catching your prey yourself!"

Starling stepped back to the door. "Great, see you tomorrow... Liquidator."


Starling got free of the apartment and got onto the Ratcatcher. He drove back to the old fishery warehouse by the docks and went up the stairs into the abandoned office space.

SplasherQuack was sitting behind the desk, booted legs up on the table, examining her sharp fingers. "Was all that worth it?"

He dropped down on the pile of old blankets at the side of the room, "You kidding me? I caught 'em all before he did. I've managed to get them all coming after him. All I gotta do is keep working the angle and he'll be in for one heck of a nasty surprise. Plus none of them hate me, that's a twist on the old show."

"You really need to let that go."
"Yeah? Like your humanity?" Starling scoffed, "Gimme a break, this ain't rocket science. They got his blood so they got his strength. Four vamps against one; that's gotta be enough to get him a real bad headache."
"Well congratulations... I so don't care." She stretched.

"So that's why we couldn't find those graves." Starling thought. "His whole family have been vampires the whole time. Why didn't 'you' tell me that?"

SplasherQuack shrugged, "Smells like a duck to me, just a bit... weird."


"I'm still damp." Starling grumbled, "He was like 'the Liquinator', not Liquidator."
"Ech." SplasherQuack grumbled, "Serves you right, walking right into his lurking spot. Guys like that love just hanging out waiting for people to drop by, then they slime all over them and drink 'em down in private."

"Huh." Starling considered, "You reckon DM's like that?"
"For what it's worth," SplasherQuack paused, "he snaked you real fast in that crypt."
Starling laughed, "The look on both your faces was hilarious!"

SplasherQuack rolled her eyes, "Whatever. If it wasn't for me you'd still be out, looking over every puddle from here to the south side hydraulic power company."
"Never said you weren't good for nothing now did I?" He chuckled, hanging up his wet clothes on the mound of box beside his bed. Starling pulled his blanket over himself with a yawn.

For a moment, SplasherQuack sat there thinking, "...Oi!" She tipped the boxes over onto him and stormed out of the room.
Starling grinned, setting the boxes straight and rehanging his costume up. "Good night, SplasherQuack." He sang sweetly, then curled back up under the blanket.